Woman's Work in English Fiction, from the Restoration to the Mid-Victorian Period

by Clara Helen Whitmore

In both these novels, she taught that the only solution of the great problem of capital and labour was a recognition of the fact that their interests were identical, and that friendly intercourse was the only means of breaking down the barrier that divided them.

Mrs. Gaskell was so versatile, she touched upon so many problems of human life, that it is almost impossible to summarise her work. Ruth considers the question of the girl who has been betrayed. Ruth is as pure as Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and like her is a victim of circumstances. A stranger who has taken her under her protection reports that Ruth is a widow, and Ruth passively acquiesces in the deception, hoping that her son may never know the disgrace of his birth. But the truth comes to light, involving in temporary disgrace Ruth and her son, and the household of Mr. Benson, the dissenting minister whose home had been her place of refuge. But Mrs. Gaskell is always optimistic. By her good deeds, Ruth wins the love and honour of the entire community. This novel was loudly assailed. It was claimed that Mrs. Gaskell had condoned immorality, and it was considered dangerous teaching that good deeds were an atonement for such a sin. But if Ruth found detractors, it also found warm admirers, who recognised the broader teachings of the story. Mrs. Jameson wrote to Mrs. Gaskell:

"I hope I do understand your aim—you have lifted up your voice against 'that demoralising laxity of principle,' which I regard as the ulcer lying round the roots of society; and you have done it wisely and well, with a mingled courage and delicacy which excite at once my gratitude and my admiration."

The scene of Sylvia's Lovers is laid in Whitby, at a time when the press-gang was kidnapping men for the British navy. It is a story of the loves, jealousies, and sorrows of sailors, shopkeepers, and small farmers, among whom Sylvia moves as the central figure. Du Maurier, who illustrated the second edition of this novel, was so charmed with the heroine that he named his daughter Sylvia for her. This story, like Ruth, has much of the sentimentalism so fashionable in the middle of the nineteenth century. The leading canon of criticism at that time was the power with which a writer could move the emotions of the reader, and the novelist was expected either to convulse his readers with laughter or dissolve them into tears. There are many funny scenes in Sylvia's Lovers, but the key-note is pathos. Like many novels of Dickens, there are death-bed scenes introduced only for the luxury of weeping over sorrows that are not real, and there are melodramatic situations as in her other books. Parts of this novel suggested to Tennyson the poem of Enoch Arden.

But, however powerful may be the novels dealing with the questions that daily confront the poor, there is a perennial charm in the society of people who dwell amid rural scenes. Mrs. Gaskell has written several short stories of the pastoral type. Such a story is Cousin Phillis. It is a beautiful idyl and reminds one of the old pastorals in which ladies and gentlemen played at shepherds and shepherdesses. Cousin Phillis cooks, irons, reads Dante, helps the haymakers, falls in love, and mends a broken heart, and is brave, true, and unselfish. Her father is what one would expect from such a daughter. He cultivates his small farm, finds rest from his labours in reading, and neglects none of the many duties which belong to him as the dissenting minister of a small village.

Cranford and Wives and Daughters have this in common, that the scene of both is laid in the village of Knutsford. The former is a rambling story of events in two or three households, and of the social affairs in which all the village is concerned. It is without doubt the favourite of Mrs. Gaskell's novels. Wives and Daughters was Mrs. Gaskell's last story, and was left unfinished at her death. It shows a great artistic advance over her earlier work. The plot is more natural; it has not so many sharp contrasts, which George Eliot criticised in Mrs. Gaskell's stories. The characters are also more subtle. Molly, the daughter of the village doctor, is an unselfish, thoughtful girl, but with none of that unreal goodness which Dickens sometimes gave to his heroines. When she receives her first invitation to a child's party, and her father is wondering whether or not she can go, her speech is characteristic of her nature:

"Please, Papa,—I do wish to go—but I don't care about it."

Molly feels very keenly, and longs for things with all the strength of an ardent nature, but she always subordinates herself and her wishes to others. In the character of Cynthia, Mrs. Gaskell makes a plea for the heartless coquette. Cynthia is beautiful, she likes to please those in whose company she finds herself, but quickly forgets the absent. It is not her fault that young men's hearts are brittle, for it is as natural for her to smile, and be gay and forget, as it is for Molly to love, be silent, and remember. So it is Cynthia who has the lovers, while Molly is neglected. Clare, Cynthia's mother, is more selfish than her daughter, but she has learned the art of seeming to please others while thinking only of pleasing herself. She is as crafty as Becky Sharp, but softer, more feline, and more subtle; a much commoner type in real life than Thackeray's diplomatic heroine.

Mr. A. W. Ward, in the biographical introduction to the Knutsford Edition of her novels, says of her later work:

"When Mrs. Gaskell had become conscious that if true to herself, to her own ways of looking at men and things, to the sympathies and hopes with which life inspired her, she had but to put pen to paper, she found what it has been usual to call her later manner—the manner of which Cranford offered the first adequate illustration, and of which Cousin Phillis and Wives and Daughters represent the consummation."